Sandra Dodd

Robin Bentley brought me a video, by a psychologist from Texas, a TED talk.
It’s very short, fun and funny. He talks fast and I like that.

https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work?language=en#t-30520

Two of my essays from years back have some of those ideas—joy over “happiness” and the idea of deciding what you’re looking for, so you can learn to see it.

http://sandradodd.com/joy
http://sandradodd.com/seeingit

Anyone who would like to level up should watch that video and read those essays and never go back.

Sandra

Catherine

"Two of my essays from years back have some of those ideas—joy over
“happiness” and the idea of deciding what you’re looking for, so you can
learn to see it.


http://sandradodd.com/joy
http://sandradodd.com/seeingit "


This particularly resonates in me today ! I am reading a book called
"The year of happiness" (L'annee du bonheur, by Isabelle Filliozat),
which gives you a quote and thoughts / meditations / ideas of actions to
live more consciently, and today was :
"We should try to be happy, if only to set an example" ("Il faudrait
essayer d'etre heureux, ne serait-ce que pour donner l'exemple" -
Jacques Prevert)
If we are waiting for happiness, we might never see it. Finding
happiness in the little things, changing the way we think about
happiness, makes us happy !


Cath




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Sandra Dodd

-=-If we are waiting for happiness, we might never see it. Finding
happiness in the little things, changing the way we think about
happiness, makes us happy !-=-

Cath wrote that.

This week’s Just Add Light and Stir posts have started to seem repetitive to me, but the same ideas kept coming up, and the same kinds of photos kept jumping up and say “choose me!”

This one, with a beautiful photo of Megan Valnes’ daughter,
http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/2016/04/up.html
leads to one from November 2014
http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/2014/11/upward.html
which says

It can be a happy spiral upward, when feeling better about being a good mom makes one a better parent, and the child smiles and laughs, and the mom relaxes more.

http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/2016/04/good-to-great.html , yesterday, said

Good things build up gradually into great things. Bad things erode faith and trust.

That was pulled from a post I made on someone’s facebook page, when someone I don’t know had bragged that she had told her young son that the ice cream man was dangerous or evil (I don’t remember the wording and it’s probably best not to quote her), and that it had saved her a small fortune. In suggesting that it had also cost her trust and relationship, I wrote the line above. And I saved it, which was good, because the person whose page it was on deleted it, and wrote to me. The mom who told the story DID lose her relationships with her children, who are now grown, and her mental health is not good lately. I didn’t mind it being pulled. I was pretty direct, and this wasn’t a mom with young children anymore anyway.

It was too late for her.

Don’t let it be too late for you, if you’re reading this.

What’s above is just the past two days’ quotes and links. :-)

The past couple of weeks' of Just Add Light posts are:

Up!
Good to great
Better everything
Clutter or beauty?
Quiet abundance
Take your time
Soft
Normal
Aware of words
Stop time
This planet
Stop and hush
Health and contentment
Sleep when you’re tired
Empowering Others
Dark corners, lit up
Acceptance and relaxation

Those who read those by e-mail should sometimes go to the blog. The formatting is nice, and each post has “You might also like” and it leads to three somehow-related posts.

One of the links above offered me a post with a photo of my daughter, Holly. It’s called “See good, be good.”
http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/2014/12/see-good-be-good.html

Without happiness, contentment, peace, joy, unschooling will not flourish. It might “work.” It might be passable. Why settle for barely, sort of unschooling enough to… what? to pass? to not be criticized? to not have social services come?

This is something worth doing well, because it has the potential beyond the obvious. A parent who can really understand these things and do them changes his or her own life as much as the children’s lives are changed.

It’s a pretty big deal. :-)

Sandra